Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) is a system developed to allow the mechanical processing of checks by financial institutions. A “bank line” of magnetically readable characters is written near the bottom of each check, consistent with American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and American Banking Association (ABA) standards that define the content, placement, and readability of the line. The line includes account information and other data, such as dollar amount. Magnetic sensors in check processing equipment detect and decode the MICR line of characters as checks are scanned past the sensors. While optical character recognition (OCR) is increasingly replacing magnetic sensors, there remains a need to maintain compatibility with older processing systems.
One process commonly used for printing MICR characters is the use of a laser printer with a specialized MICR toner. MICR toner differs from standard laser printer toner by the inclusion of a 50% to 60% iron oxide additive content. Because the toner must meet special requirements beyond human readability, and also because of the lower demand, MICR toner cartridges are substantially more expensive than standard toner cartridges.
MICR characters are also printed in a special font which facilitates accurate character recognition by magnetic sensors. The required character font may typically be provided by a memory module installed in the printer, or through software. Typically, fonts are stored in a file format that allows the printer (or computer) to accurately reconstruct the characters and symbols; font files may, for example, be stored in raster, vector, and TrueType formats, which differ in the manner in which the “glyphs” for each character or symbol is stored.
In many office environments a standard laser printer is used to print both checks and other non-check documents. In these environments, it is not uncommon for office workers to inadvertently use the more expensive MICR toner to print ordinary office documents, or to use non-MICR toner to print checks. Importantly, checks printed using non-MICR toner do not look any different than checks printed with MICR toner, and a seemingly valid check could thus be printed using non-MICR toner. This can lead to difficulties in processing the check, which can both embarrass the party cashing the check and make the company issuing the check appear less professional.
Offices may typically adopt one or more approaches to avoid both wasting expensive MICR toner and check-printing errors. One approach is the use of pre-printed check forms, which include a partial MICR bank line with account information, thus entirely avoiding the need for the office to use MICR toner. This approach has several drawbacks. First, the pre-printed checks must be loaded into the printer before a check printing session and unloaded afterwards, and it is thus not uncommon for non-check documents to be inadvertently printed on the pre-printed forms. Second, it is possible to run out of the pre-printed forms, which stops additional checks from being issued until more check forms are obtained. Third, the preprinted information on the forms must properly line up with the information being printed on the check, and it is possible to misalign the printed output on the check media, leading to the payee, amount, etc. being printed in the wrong location on the check. Finally, the preprinted forms present security issues, in that the pre-printed forms can be stolen and checks can be forged.
A second approach is to have office workers carefully install the MICR toner cartridge before printing checks and remove it when done. Needless to say, being careful doesn't always work. Checks can be inadvertently printed with non-MICR toner, and non-check documents can be inadvertently printed using MICR toner.
There is therefore a need for apparatus and methods that prevent the inadvertent printing of checks with non-MICR toner, and the printing of non-check documents with MICR toner.